Albert Pujols stayed on the St. Louis Cardinals. The three-time NL MVP didn’t get a contract extension before he reported to spring training, and insists he will not negotiate again until after the season, when he can file for free agency.

“I already blocked it out,” he said a few days ago.

Off the field, there’s a lot to track this year.

The New York Mets’ mess with the Bernard Madoff scandal is sure to hang over the club, even if team management says it won’t. The All-Star game in Phoenix will be a politically charged event, with Commissioner Bud Selig the target of protesters upset with Arizona’s immigration law and calling for him to move the event to another state.

Major League Baseball’s deal between players and owners, meanwhile, expires in mid-December. Against the backdrop of an NFL lockout and brewing trouble in the NBA, baseball’s labor landscape seems rather serene.

“I don’t know. ‘Peace’ is a relative word,” said Red Sox reliever Daniel Bard, Boston’s player representative. “It seems like everything’s happy-go-lucky and calm waters right now. But something could come up, a topic that maybe hasn’t gotten a lot of publicity that could become a big issue. But right now it seems good.”

Said Colorado manager Jim Tracy: “This game took quite a blow when we lost the World Series in 1994. No one is interested to see that again. The NHL lost a whole season, and that is devastating to your sport.”

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are back in the lineup, lingering reminders of the Steroids Era.

Bonds, the seven-time NL MVP, is on trial at a federal courthouse in San Francisco. The career home run leader Alex Rodriguez needs 150 to beat him is accused of lying when he told a grand jury in 2003 he never knowingly took steroids.

Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young winner, is set to go on trial July 6 in federal court in Washington, D.C., on three counts of making false statements, two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of Congress stemming from his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs.

By then, the Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates probably will be far apart. The Phillies have won four straight NL East crowns and led the big leagues with 97 wins last year; the Pirates absorbed a majors-worst 105 defeats in 2010 and have endured 18 straight losing seasons.

Listen to their stars, though, and they’re talking about the same thing.

“A lot of us are to the point in our career where you feel like the biggest thing left for you to do is win a championship, whether you’ve already done it or you haven’t,” Halladay said. “That’s why I still want to play this game. I want to be part of a world championship team.”

Echoed Pirates youngster Andrew McCutchen: “What I’m looking for is a championship with this team.”